


In Sickness and in Health

by Nym



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, One Shot, PWP, Prompt Fic, Smutlet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-06
Updated: 2012-10-06
Packaged: 2017-11-15 18:43:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/530475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nym/pseuds/Nym
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Belle has a cold. Mr. Gold overreacts.</p><p>
  <em>He wants her to have gifts, all the gifts in the world, and in giving her the computer he has given her just that. He thrills to see her enjoy books, cosmetics, clothing, shoes and trinkets. He strives to make her happy, beginning with the small ways that matter less because he is aware that he has much to learn in other respects.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Sickness and in Health

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rufeepeach](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rufeepeach/gifts), [thehinkypanda](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=thehinkypanda).



> thehinkypanda asked for: Gold and Belle: Belle has a cold. Gold thinks she's dying, she has to prove otherwise.
> 
> rufeepeach asked for: Rumpelstiltskin/Belle, she rewards him for playing nice with others
> 
> **None of my fanfiction may be reposted or otherwise shared elsewhere, including translations and audio recordings, unless you have my written consent. Using my occasional original ideas/characters in your own fanfic, to make your _own_ words or art or whatever, is fine with me.**

When Belle caught a cold, scant days after sacrificing herself to Rumpelstiltskin to save her people from the ogres, he laughed at her. Oh, he gave her extra blankets and a thick cloak to wear over her now-grubby golden dress; he lightened her duties and gave her herbs to add to a basin of steaming water to soothe her aching face, and he saw to it that she fed herself well, but it was all done with a grin or a giggle; with a lack of sympathy that made her both irritable and dreadfully homesick.

Belle remembers that, tucked up in bed - his bed - in the new world. This cold is nowhere near as bad as that one, but Rumpelstiltskin has bundled her off to bed with two hot water bottles, a heap of glossy magazines that baffle and intrigue her, and what appears to be every brightly packaged medicine on the face of the new land. There are boxes for pain, boxes for stuffiness, boxes for sleep, boxes for staying awake and, among them, not one that promises to be any better at healing a head cold than Rumpelstiltskin's soothing herbs and a bowl of steaming water. It cannot all be used at once - she is under stern instructions to read each box and to obey the strictures printed there, and to telephone him immediately if she cannot make perfect sense of it - but he bought her everything, and a box of chocolates too.

In short, he panicked.

Belle is touched, and doesn't mention to him that she has survived plenty of colds in her lifetime, the worst of them in that asylum where she was never warm, never had ample blankets or a woollen cloak in which to cosy up and wait it out.

She likes the magazines - big, floppy books printed in lifelike colour on shiny paper that smells strange. They have names like _She Says_ , _Top Woman_ and - Belle giggles, and clearly pictures Rumpelstiltskin glancing furtively around in the busy shop before sweeping the entire, shameful contents of a feminine-looking shelf into his basket with one arm - _Modern Bride_. They're all impossibly frivolous, no substance in the few words they contain, yet it thrills her that this world has such things in it, each and every one of them apparently aimed at women.

After leafing through the first couple, and seeing more bare flesh on display than she is entirely comfortable with in a book that is, ostensibly, about clothing, Belle has to pause and give serious thought to what _kind_ of woman lives in this world, outside the confines of their freakish little town, but she likes the glossy pictures and the sheer array of newness that the books contain.

Guiltily, she enjoys _Modern Bride_ the most. It speaks of _your dream wedding_ and of _efficient planning_ and _that perfect day_ , but on the whole it tries to sell her clothing and foolish ambition. Even here, the modern brides may be seen scantily clad, but the underwear on display is at least familiar to her. Corsets, stockings and garters feature largely, and hint at wedding-night allure.

Belle is rather spoiled for her own wedding night, now _(and, against all likelihood, still hoping that her father doesn't know that)_. She feels, in any case, that a little allure might not do any harm, and takes herself out of bed to fetch what Rumpelstiltskin calls "the accursed thing", but Princess Snow's adorable grandson, Henry, calls "the cool computer _(can I play a game?)_ "

Although she struggles with many aspects of this world, Belle likes the computer. It's larger than the glossy magazines, and quite heavy if she sits with it on her knees, but it contains the world in a way that books don't - immediate, changing and _(Henry explains)_ interactive.

In combination with the small rectangle of golden plastic that Rumpelstiltskin gave her, the cool computer can bring the world to Belle's own doorstep within forty-eight hours.

Today, it brings her a vast choice of bridal lingerie.

~+~

The cold gets worse before it gets better.

This comes as no surprise to Belle, but seems to appall Rumpelstiltskin, who closes his shop and sets up camp by the bedside as though he fears that she may die if he turns his back. She doesn't scold him, not after all the lost years, but makes it clear that she thinks closing the shop is an overreaction.

It is, nevertheless, an education to discover that his business can continue at her bedside. He has a telephone that fits in his breast pocket, flat and shiny and smaller than Belle's hand. Unlike the one beside the bed, with its big rotating dial of numbers, his pocket phone is an electronic marvel, much like her computer. With it, Rumpelstiltskin - Mr. Gold - is able to run Storybrooke while serving her chicken soup.

Belle hasn't quite worked out why he feels the need. He assures her that his wealth is considerable - enough that she need not consult him for any purchase that's possible using the credit card, and yet, as she sits and browses a world of a million books on her computer, she overhears Rumpelstiltskin quibbling about paltry sums of money with people to whom those sums are a fortune. He is every bit as ruthless, in this, as he used to be in securing his deals; he holds people to the letter of a contract, and has no sympathy for any unwanted circumstances that result from their decision to sign their name.

That her father is one of those to fall under this spell of his, Belle already knows. It sickens her a little, enough to send Mr. Gold and his pocket telephone away and let her shop for books in peace.

It's difficult not to doubt him, when she sees how easily he is still drawn to the torment of a desperate soul. On the other hand, she has watched him in a torment of his own, these past weeks, resisting the ever present temptation that is Regina. That he would gladly - cheerfully, gloatingly - gut her with a carving knife, for what she's done to Belle, is never in doubt. That he persistently, and for Belle's sake, does not do so - that gives her hope.

Her mood is brightened by the arrival of parcels.

Rumpelstiltskin brings them up to her, pretending to complain about the clutter of consumerism and waste cardboard spreading in his home, but he can never hide the light in his eyes. He wants her to have gifts, all the gifts in the world, and in giving her the computer he has given her just that. He thrills to see her enjoy books, cosmetics, clothing, shoes and trinkets. He strives to make her happy, beginning with the small ways that matter less because he is aware that he has much to learn in other respects. Belle loves him, in spite of and because of all of that, and because he has her confined to bed with a mere cold, and because he gazes at her blotchy, puffy face and red, cracked nose, and his lips still part with yearning.

She has been particularly looking forward to one of the boxes, flat and wide, because it contains a gift that she can share with him; a boned corset laced with ribbon, sheer silk stockings, garter belt and a diaphanous wrap that falls to the stocking tops, revealing more than it conceals. Belle chose a pale blue, in place of bridal white, trimmed with a deeper blue that's picked up in the changing hues of the little wrap.

Thrilled, Belle abandons her sickbed and spends half an hour indulging herself under the shower, until the steam has cleared her head and the water has washed away the clinging discomforts of being unwell. She dries her hair and curls it, the self-heating devices for accomplishing both tasks already among her very favourite things in the new land. She powders her face to even out the blotches, and adds a smear of coral lipstick to her chapped lips. _(Her experiments with the other cosmetics are still in the early stages, and do not yet achieve an effect that she would describe as 'alluring')_.

It excites her, simply slipping into the new lingerie. While she cannot argue with this world's comfortable solution to supporting the bust, the stretchy and forgiving bra, a part of her feels under-dressed without the confining fit of a corset. In the skimpy blue things, she feels both supported and comfortable, though more full of blushes than she has ever been while wearing nothing at all. The silk panties, in particular, are scandalously inadequate, serving neither modesty nor hygiene. Their only purpose, she realises, adjusting the scrap of fabric a little as she stands before the tall mirror, is to tantalise.

She ought to wait, she thinks. Wait until she feels better, until there's no danger of a running nose or a tickling throat interrupting what she is sure will happen, the moment Rumpelstiltskin sees her in the new things. Then again, she feels the want of his touch just from putting the lovely lingerie on, and making herself ready for him. A tentative hand slipped into the flimsy knickers finds a ready moisture, and Belle's toes curl into the rug as she curls up her fingers there, thinking of him.

She doesn't _want_ to wait. It's been days, thanks to the cold. And, besides, he looks so worried about her. What better way to prove to him that she's on the mend?

As an afterthought, Belle browses her selection of new shoes. She selects a dark blue pair that almost match the embellishments on her outfit, and steps into them with a smile. Shoes, in this world, come with tall heels like little spikes. She likes the flat sort, as well, but Rumpelstiltskin's pupils dilate when she bares her knees and wears the spiky ones, so she does it often, and has almost learned how to walk in them without wobbling like a drunkard. Well enough to go downstairs, anyway, and surprise Rumpelstiltskin in his study.

Taking off the shoes at the top of the stairs in order to hide the sound of her approach, Belle makes her way down. She can hear him talking on the telephone again, and recognises tones of quiet menace that make her heart sink. Keeping the shoes in her hand, she creeps near enough to the door of his study to listen to what is being said.

Rumpelstiltskin - Mr. Gold - is implacable. In the old world, where he pranced and giggled in leather and silk, he would sometimes bend. If someone pleased him, surprised him, amused him without trying then he might allow them leeway, if not actual mercy. It was not compassion, never that, but it meant that the desperate souls sometimes had a second chance. Belle had surprised him, and his shuttered heart had slowly opened to the possibility of her - of one who could befriend him, love him, in spite of all. Her second chance had been him.

In this world, he does not bend, except for her. He never laughs unless it's with her, or for cynical effect in his dealings with others. Mr. Gold doesn't gesticulate, or giggle, or prance about in glee to see how he can make someone crumble or show their strength; he speaks softly, with a calm arrogance and an easy stillness that he didn't have the patience for, in the old life. He is immovable and unforgiving.

Except for Belle.

"Mrs. Phillips," he says, a chuckle giving his voice a warmth that belies his intent, "this is all very interesting, but why should I make an exception for you? You agreed to my terms readily enough. I'm a businessman."

Belle slips on the shoes and steps into the doorway of his study.

Rumpelstiltskin, seated in a leather chair with a glass of spirits on the low table beside him, almost drops the little pocket telephone when he sees her. His mouth opens, and Belle hears the unfortunate Mrs. Phillips continue to talk, unheeded, her voice rising in increasing anxiety.

He stares at Belle, stricken and enchanted, until he remembers himself and, swallowing, returns his attention to the conversation.

"I may have to call you back at a more convenient time," he says, and doesn't flinch away from the woman's squawk of protest. Belle can make it out, all the way across the room.

She unties the belt of her wrap and shrugs it off, feeling it tickle all the way down the back of her legs before it settles, silently, around the impractical high heels. She makes sure that her face has no expression but one of mild interest, and waits.

Rumpelstiltskin closes his eyes.

"Mrs. Phillips," he says, interrupting a noisy and quite probably tearful stream of pleas, "please, calm down. We don't want you ending up with yet more medical bills, do we?" The voice on the line lowers to a volume at which Belle can make out nothing. "Will six months be an acceptable compromise?" The voice rises again, this time in relief and thanks.

Rumpelstiltskin swallows, nodding, his capitulation clearly paining him less than the woman's effusive gratitude. Belle crosses the room, the wobbly shoes adding a sultry sway to her stride, and seats herself on the wide arm of his leather chair, legs tucked next to his and crossed at the ankle, stroking the hair back from his face and smiling at him.

He doesn't know where to look first, so casts a desperate glance up at her eyes and tries to remember how to speak to the woman on the phone.

"Yes, dear," he says, cutting the flood of tinny chatter short. "I really must go now. Get well soon." He fumbles as he tries to find the button to end the call, then fumbles again in trying to place the little gadget on the table beside his untouched drink.

Belle draws up her knees and slips down into the chair beside him, knees on his thighs, as his arms come around her, awkwardly.

"I'm feeling much better," she tells him, nuzzling his ear through his soft hair. She adores his hair, though she misses the bounce and curl that it had in his cursed state. "I thought you might like my new things."

"You... beautiful," he manages, but when he tries to twist and kiss her, Belle moves herself astride his legs. She doesn't want him to catch her cold. Resting her hands on his shoulders, thumbs kneading through the silk, she rises up on her knees to let him see her better. His hands are warm and so hesitant at her waist, fingers exploring the intersection of elastic and silk and skin. "Belle..."

He says her name like that, sometimes; like a prayer, like the opposite of a curse word, or perhaps just to hear it said aloud. He gazes up at her with hungry eyes, hands sliding up to cup her breasts, then down her sides, behind her, to squeeze her bare bottom. The tiny slip of blue silk doesn't cover _that_ at all. It's like wearing a piece of string.

"That was kind of you," Belle says, in no hurry to do more than look and be so reverently touched. She rests her left hand against the back of the chair, and strokes Rumpelstiltskin's hair with her right. Resting back in the seat, he runs his hands all over her, from her heels to her shoulders, and just gazes, adoringly. "To give the sick woman more time to repay you."

"Don't tell anyone," he says, but it's such a feeble attempt at gruffness that Belle only grins. "Bad enough that the Mills boy comes for tea and doesn't get eaten." He places his hands over her breasts, thumbs beneath, and sees how they move in the cup of the corset. "If the town thinks I've gone soft," he says, slowly, watching what his hands are doing with every sign of keen, scientific interest, "we're both doomed."

Belle shivers and sighs, the touch feeding her neglected desires.

"You haven't gone soft," she reassures him, with a downward glance to his belt and the bulge of stirring interest beneath it. "Not that I've noticed."

His breath catches, and Belle giggles. It's so easy to shock him, when she's shameless. She delves between them to cup his heavy crotch and test the truth of her statement, and Rumpelstiltskin closes his eyes, pushing his head back into the pliant leather and catching his lower lip between his teeth. He _likes_ it when she touches him first, makes him hard with her hands before making him wait for completion. At first, she was afraid that it was a kind of cruelty, to add more waiting on top of their lost years, but the years fall out of his features while she sways and squeezes and rubs him, his cock and his balls, her fingertips slipping between him and the cushion to tease the still more sensitive area behind.

Usually, they kiss. They kiss as though the world is ending, because in so many ways, it has. It's a novelty to be able to watch him respond to her hand - to watch him watching _her_ , and to notice where his gaze lingers.

"What else have you been buying?" he wonders, distracting himself before the excitement of her touch carries him too far.

"Books." Belle sits back on her heels, on his knees, precariously balanced as she tries to keep her weight from his bad leg. She unbuckles his belt while Rumpelstiltskin strokes her arms, plays with her freshly-curled hair, and watches her face, rapt. "Slippers." The gold-plated buckle comes loose and she starts on the button, having to concentrate and look hard at what she's doing.

It's possible that all the cold medicine has gone to her head a little bit, because she giggles when she finally frees his zipper, more pleased with herself than the accomplishment actually calls for.

"Not soft," she decides, fingering the smooth head of his cock through thin cotton underwear. "Not soft at all."

"I'm sure that--" he points down at himself "--will sway the townspeople when they come with pitchforks and flaming torches," Rumpelstiltskin says, deadpan, but smirking a moment later. He likes that she can arouse him so very easily - that her touch, her kisses, even her mere presence can keep him aching in that state. Belle has less patience, once she begins to burn, but he likes that as well, and pleasures her with devotion until neither of them can bear it a moment longer. Then they join, and it's always magical. Magical without magic. Belle loves being with him in every way, but that one most of all.

"I'll protect you," Belle declares, and gives his cock one last, loving squeeze before abandoning it for the rest of him. She likes the neckties, best of all the male clothing in this world. Neater than a cravat, and tied like a noose beneath the stiff fold of the collar, they're a strange decoration but Belle likes them. Rumpelstiltskin always wears one, even when they're at home alone together and he leaves off his crisp jacket. Today it's a silvery grey, expensive and simple, in contrast with a darker grey shirt. She takes her time, untying the knot, while Rumpelstiltskin eases aside the scrap of silk between her legs and pets her with a fingertip, finding her tellingly wet and restlessly sensitive. It won't take much to have her gasping, panting, falling into abandon; he can do it with a fingertip, with fingers inside her, with his tongue.

That isn't what she wants, now. The novelty of not kissing him has begun to pall, so she slips from his lap to her knees at his feet, kicking off the silly shoes behind her, and gazes up at him as she begins kissing at his right knee.

"You won't be able to breathe," he points out, smirking, well aware of her ultimate destination. Belle shrugs, cheekily. She can hold her breath, for a little while, and she's never heard of anyone catching a cold from _that_ sort of kiss.

On the other hand, until they were together at last, she hadn't _known_ about that sort of kiss. That gives her pause, with her head in his lap and her hands at the convenient slit in his underwear that makes it criminally easy to pleasure him without the rigmarole of removing all his clothing. They tug his pants down a little, between them, but she leaves the underwear. She likes the naughtiness of seeing the blood-flushed flesh peek out from its hiding place - of drawing it out, holding it in her closed fist and feeling how he tightens at the first touch of her skin, there.

He plays with the back of the corset, and with her hair, while she's working her way along his lap with little kisses. He tightens his knees either side of her, and it's a strange sort of hug but a nice one, until Belle realises that it's causing him pain and slides her hand down his bad leg, soothing and urging him to relax it. He's given her not a moment's pain, in their loving - not even the very first moment that he entered her - and she can't bear that, sometimes, his pain seems unavoidable during his pleasure. Not that Rumpelstiltskin appears to mind, but Belle minds, and caresses the tender leg while she brings her mouth to the flesh in her hand, kissing gently before swirling her tongue around the silky-soft head of his cock.

Rumpelstiltskin sighs, so softly that she'd miss it if she hadn't learned to listen for it. He never asks for this, but when the whim takes her, it makes him so blissfully happy that Belle doesn't mind the awkwardness, or the peculiar taste of him after he's worn the rubber things, or, in this case, the fact that slipping him into her mouth and closing her lips around him means that she cannot, as he pointed out, breathe.

Stupid cold.

She settles for making each suck short and sweet before rising for air, resolving yet again to become better at doing this than she is, because when he applies his mouth between her legs - when he pushes inside her with his eager tongue - the pleasure is beyond describing. She wants him to have the same, or the nearest approximation that she can give him, and to give it as artlessly and as generously as he does.

"Oh, darling," he murmurs, hand moving restlessly in her hair. He's usually so quiet, while they make love; sounds but rarely words. Belle sucks him again, as slowly as she can, and taking him as deeply as she's able. It feels inadequate, to her - not enough affection to show this cherished, private part of him, but his approval is in no doubt. The hand that is not in her hair is grasping and slipping on the leather arm of the seat, and he begins to shift his legs, his hips, in his state of uncontainable excitement. "Belle," he says, voice cracking when she comes up for air and, quite by accident, catches the flared head of his cock with her lips and a hint of teeth. "Oh, please darling," he groans, so Belle rubs her cheek against his cock, then strokes him steadily with her hand and gazes up to see him transported as the moment overcomes him.

It spills over her hand and wrist, splashing onto his shirt; hot and slippery proof of his love, while he twitches and moans in his deep leather armchair, his lips trying to form the shape of her name.

It usually takes a lot longer, Belle notes, smiling at what she sees. He must like her new lingerie very much to be so carried away, so soon, without even kissing her.

Fumbling, he coaxes her back into his lap, much nearer this time, and drags his mouth across her breasts, still panting from his own pleasure. A gentle rub with two fingers through the sodden scrap of silk is enough to make Belle convulse, clutching his head to her chest while the aching pleasure lasts, then going weak and requiring his arm to hold her in place when he crooks two fingers inside her and it builds again, moments later, to a flaring peak of perfection. It's a satisfaction like no other, to sag down into his lap, afterwards, curling up with him in the generous chair, while the demands of the body unwind into peace.

They ebb away to leave Belle feeling a little chilly, and slightly embarrassed, and ridiculously proud of her small conquest in making him come so very quickly. Rumpelstiltskin holds her close and tries to kiss her, and grunts with disappointment when she turns her head away to take his kiss upon her cheek instead.

"No catching my cold," she scolds, putting a finger to his lips. Rumpelstiltskin kisses the finger, his eyes soft with love.

"I'm glad you're feeling better," he says, and that's his bedroom voice, belonging to neither the old, restless Rumpelstiltskin nor the immovable, new Mr. Gold. The owner of that voice is a creature known only to Belle, her sweet lover and devoted protector. She hopes that he'll let the world see him, one day.

Today, here and now, he is hers alone, and she loves him dearly.

Belle smirks, hiding her face against his neck and recalling something from _Modern Bride_.

_In sickness and in health._

**Author's Note:**

> **None of my fanfiction may be reposted or otherwise shared elsewhere, including translations and audio recordings, unless you have my written consent. Using my occasional original ideas/characters in your own fanfic, to make your _own_ words or art or whatever, is fine with me.**


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